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Monitoring The UN > The UN and Sustainable Development Transboundary Air Pollution Atmospheric pollution is one of the most complex and difficult environmental problems facing the world today. Virtually every form of human activity has the potential to degrade the world’s clean air and protective atmosphere in one way or another. Harvesting wood and burning it as fuel both reduces the planet’s ability to absorb ambient carbon and adds to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Industrial development requires vast amounts of energy from fossil fuels such as oil and coal for electricity and transportation which, in turn, can lead to increased urban smog locally, acid rain and global warming due to the greenhouse effect. With air pollution, the greatest problem is that while actions at a local or national level are the root sources of toxic emissions, released particles know no boundaries. Prevailing winds carry the contamination around the world, causing serious environmental damage in far away places and contribute to overall global atmospheric degradation. Transboundary air pollution became a serious topic for discussion in the 1960’s and 1970’s. A century of explosive industrial development in the countries of the north had left a legacy of smog and acid rain. Increased ownership of automobiles in North America and Europe, combined with relatively little emphasis placed on more fuel efficient means of public transportation, added another dimension to the problem. Increases in trade flows had also necessitated bigger, more powerful trucks, trains, airplanes and ships using relatively dirty petroleum-based fuels such as diesel, bunker oil and kerosene-derived aviation fuel. By the late 1970’s, world leaders were talking seriously about ways and means of addressing transboundary air pollution through international legal instruments. As with all international legal instruments, however, the problem was one of just how much interference in domestic prerogatives regarding industrial development, resource management and taxation national governments were willing to tolerate. In the north, the view that environmental protection programmes would act as a hindrance rather than a necessary component of economic development and prosperity was widely held. In Europe, the Scandinavian countries began to protest that freshwater and forest resources were suffering as a result of industrial activity in Great Britain and Southern Europe. In North America, the realization that lakes and forests in the north-central and north-eastern areas of the continent were dying led to a sustained war of words between Canada and the United State during the late 1970’s and 1980’s. With international relations beginning to suffer, governments dedicated themselves to negotiating bilateral and multilateral agreements to study, monitor and reduce emissions which were causing harm to the environment. Several agreements were successfully negotiated in Europe and North America and are still in effect today. In the south, the situation was very different. Countries in South America, Africa and especially Asia had been striving to industrialize since either attaining independence or advancing socially and economically to the point where industrial take-off was possible. To the countries of the south, northern sermons about the dangers of industrialization seemed to translate into an attempt to frustrate economic development policies aimed at improving national standards of living to northern levels. It appeared hypocritical for the north, having experienced both the social benefits and unpleasant environmental side effects of industrialization, to turn around in the 1980’s and 1990’s and deny developing countries the financial and technical resources necessary to develop. This situation is still of grave concern today, clouding relations between the north and several emerging industrial powers like China and India. In the 1980’s, a new, and potentially more dangerous factor was introduced into the atmospheric pollution equation. Scientists had succeeded in proving that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s), widely used in aerosol cans and in refrigeration, were destroying the ozone layer around the planet. Without the ozone layer, harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun enter the lower atmosphere. These UV rays have been shown to have serious effects on life by causing cancer in animals and mutations in plant life. Agreement was reached in the mid-1980’s to curtail the production of CFC’s and phase out global production and use, but the same north/south rift quickly emerged. Many less developed countries did not have the financial or technical resources to develop substitutes for the prohibited CFC’s and found that this was another example of the north trying to arrest economic and industrial development in the south. Effective transboundary air pollution measures have, and will continue to demand that countries and businesses pursue economic and industrial strategies which are environmentally sustainable. Past examples of economic and industrial development have proved unsustainable in the long-run and require adjustment. New policies and processes will have to go to the core of the problem by addressing production and consumption patterns globally and at the same time provide developing and the least developed countries with the financial and technical resources required to implement sustainable strategies. Like virtually no other issue, transboundary air pollution will continue to demand concerted international cooperation if existing damage is to be counteracted and future damage prevented. UN Activities in the Area of Transboundary Air Pollution In the last ten to fifteen years, the international community has been very active in the area of transboundary air pollution, often working under the auspice of the United Nations or one of it's associated agencies or programmes. For the sake of clarity, international transboundary air pollution measures can be grouped into two functional categories: those dealing with carbon-based emissions associated with acid rain, smog and the greenhouse effect; and those dealing with the protection of the ozone layer. Greenhouse Gases/Acid Rain: In 1979, talks sponsored by the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) resulted in the establishment, in 1983, of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution. Though the highest decision-making body of the Convention is the panel of member countries, the Convention’s administration was assigned to the ECE. By far, the most important multilateral body dedicated to monitoring, reporting and regulating carbon-based emissions, as well as other practices and substances which impact on air quality is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The text of the agreement was prepared just in time to be presented at the Earth Summit on the Environment and Development at Rio in 1992 (UNCED). The Convention received the required number of signatures to enter into force in 1994. The UNFCCC Secretariat is located in Bonn, Germany. At Rio in 1992, the Agenda 21 Programme of Action document dealt with questions of carbon emission and greenhouse gases in Chapter 4 with regards to changing consumption patterns. The document properly placed the problem of unsustainable atmospheric pollution within the larger context of changes required in the way humans extract and consume non-renewable, carbon-based energy resources. The issue was also dealt with by way of making recommendations to improve air quality in Chapter 9 titled "Protection of the Atmosphere" Five years later in 1997, the United Nations Secretary-General, the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Nineteenth United Nation General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) called to review progress towards the goals set forth in Agenda 21, acknowledged that while some progress had been made since 1992 on transboundary air pollution, much remained to be done. Later that same year, parties to the UNFCCC met at Kyoto, Japan to negotiate an additional protocol to the 1992 Convention. The Kyoto Protocol spells out which types of emissions are to be regarded as most dangerous and sets targets for reducing emission from participating countries to 1990 levels. The Protocol still has not received the required number of signatories to go into effect as countries wrestle with difficult decisions as to how to implement the Kyoto requirements. Ozone: Once the harmful effects of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) on the earth’s ozone layer became apparent in the early 1980’s, the international community moved quickly to negotiate and implement a multilateral accord to monitor, reduce and eventually ban the production and use of CFC in aerosol and refrigeration products. In 1985, the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer was adopted. The terms called for the phasing out of harmful CFC’s over several years to allow businesses and countries time to adjust. In 1987, the terms of the Convention were strengthened by the adoption of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The Montreal Protocol has been amended four times since then, in 1990, 1992, 1995 and 1997 in order to ratchet up the regulation of CFC’s which have, for all intents and purposes, become globally prohibited substances. For information on the Framework Convention on Climate Change, including reports on progress towards ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and text of the agreements (downloadable in pdf. format with Adobe Acrobat Reader also available free at the site) see: http://www.unfccc.de. To view the text of the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer as well as background and programme information see: http://www.unep.ch/ozone/vc-text.htm and http://www.unep.ch/ozone/mp-text.htm respectively. The Economic Commission for Europe has been a pioneer as far as sponsoring transboundary air pollution studies and conferences including a recently concluded conference on the environment and transportation where air pollution factored heavily. See http://www.un.ece.org. The United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development are also good sources of general and specific information. See: http://www.undp.org, http://www.unep.org, http://www.unido.org, and http://www.unctad.org respectively. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development offers a site where searches can be conducted from broad categories, including atmosphere, and offers avenues to search for, view or download relevant UN documents. See http://www.un.org/esafor access to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Commission on Sustainable Development site as well as other environment and development organs of the UN. |
